Author Earnings

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Ann_Mayburn

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Hi Kids,

I'm a bit of an obsessive researcher about earnings, future earnings, what the publishing industry might be doing in the future, etc. I've found this website VERY helpful in figuring out the current trends and where author's are really making their money. Surprise! It's not with the Big 5 for the most part. Take a look at all the pie charts, graphs, etc that this group is doing in an effort to figure out what author's are really earning and whose making a living at writing.

For example from http://authorearnings.com/report/july-2014-author-earnings-report/:

In February, we were able to announce that self-published authors are earning nearly as much as Big 5 authors combined when it comes to ebook sales on the Kindle Store. In the two quarters since, the earnings for Big 5 authors has shrunk while that for indies has grown. We can now say that self-published authors earn more in royalties than Big 5 authors, combined. This may reverse itself by the time February rolls around, but it adds weight to a recent story in The Guardian about the unsustainability of traditional publishing if authors continue to earn less while their publishers earn more.


It bears putting a number here and stressing what we are seeing: Self-published authors are now earning nearly 40% of all ebook royalties on the Kindle store. The days of looking at self-publishing as a last option are long gone. A lot has changed in six months.


http://authorearnings.com/


***I'm not endorsing the site as gospel and infallible, but they have done some great research and knowledge is power***
 

KTC

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You can't multiple post the same post. It's not allowed.

Kind of spammy
 

evilrooster

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Looking at the site, I see that the numbers are based on a lot of crowdsourcing, self-reporting, and guesses about notoriously hard-to predict algorithms rather than hard data. (We've discussed this before - you can look up the threads to see the methodological concerns that have been expressed.)

***I'm not endorsing the site as gospel and infallible, but they have done some great research and knowledge is power***

The value of unsound research is, in my opinion, negative: it makes us think we know things that we actually don't, including who is making how much money, what that means for individual authors (how many of whom is that estimated figure spread across?), and what the future of the publishing industry in all of its many flavors really is.
 

lauralam

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I find it an interesting site but don't take the numbers as gospel. Personally, thanks to my newest deal, I've made literally 550x as much trade publishing as I have self-publishing.

But even that, when looked as closer, can be picked apart. I've self-published 38k of short fiction only a few months ago, and I currently have 200k words worth of books out and am contracted for 200k more. I'm self-publishing the third book in the first trilogy, so I'll be curious to see how that one does compared to the first two books, which sold for 1/11th of what my second book deal did.

My 2 cents: Publishing is a crazy industry and every writer's journey is different. I love being hybrid but trade publishing (esp. with Macmillan) does a lot for me that I could never do myself. Some people seem almost evangelical about self-publishing, which makes me wary. It's good to have as much information as possible, but it can be skewed by biases, even if people want to remain neutral.
 
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Sheryl Nantus

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Considering the "data guy" crunching the numbers stays anonymous and the owner of the site has an axe to grind for self-publishing... I'd take it with a huge grain of salt.

Each writer is different. Each genre is different. What works for me might not work for you.

In the end you have to choose what works for YOU and not base in on a site filled with numbers, undocumented data and cries for the publishing industry to be demolished.

Do what works for YOU as an author.

Now go write.

;)
 

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